Choose Wisely
by Aiffe
Summary: Alternate ending to The Beast Below. What if Amy had been mistaken?


There isn't really a lot of time to second-guess her conclusion, so all Amy Pond can do as she presses the Queen's hand down on the button reading _Abdicate_ is pray she got it right. (She knows it's silly, but she secretly still addresses all her prayers to Santa, because he's the only one who ever answered them, even just the once.) And she's never needed a favor from Santa like she needs it now.

The ship shakes to the core, and just at the edge of her hearing range she can _feel_ the starwhale's cry of relief. The Doctor looks at her suddenly, too shocked at what she'd done to be angry yet. And, somewhat prematurely, Amy smiles. _I've fixed it, haven't I?_

Then there's a long, horrible groan, this one not from the starwhale, but from the ship itself, of metal rending itself apart as the starwhale frees itself. The lurch travels all the way to the pit of her stomach.

"No," Amy says. _No._

Liz 10's eyes are filled with horror. "What have you done?"

Amy can't speak, but the Doctor answers for her. "You've killed them all."

"It...it wouldn't let that happen," Amy insists, desperately. "It wouldn't let the children die!"

Liz 10 shakes her head. "We've been torturing it for hundreds of years. Why should it care about the happiness of our children?"

Amy looks desperately between the Queen and the Doctor. "Because...because it's kind."

"Kind?" the Doctor repeats. "You do _understand_ what they've been doing to it?"

Amy's eyes are pleading with him. "But...it was the last," she insists. "So ancient, and so alone, and so kind. It couldn't bear to watch the children crying, that's why it came. I knew it, I was so sure. Because...because I saw the same kindness in you."

The Doctor's expression is so terribly sad. "What makes you think I'm kind?" he asks her.

Amy can feel the tears brimming in her eyes. "But you...you were going to save them."

"It's too late for that now," he says. "We have to get back to the TARDIS. There isn't much longer until the ship loses cohesion and the air runs out. You should hurry up and follow me, unless you want to die with the people you've just killed."

Amy starts to follow him, but stops suddenly, looking back at Liz 10. "Are you coming?"

"What will happen to my subjects?" she asks.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says. "There isn't time."

She nods. "A Queen without a people? Living forever alone, knowing that _I_ was responsible for that? No. That's no kind of life."

The Doctor's face is so difficult to read, as she says that. Understanding? Respect? Is it worse than that, does he envy her courage to make that choice?

They run. They have to, because the ship is falling apart around them. Airlock after airlock, they outrun the cracks and tears in the walls. There are people there, frightened, some crying and screaming, the sounds all drowned out by the noise of the destruction all around them, but their pain all too visible. They don't know there's anywhere to run to, so far out in space and so alone. Some of them are children, crying because they're going to die, and everyone they ever loved is dying with them, and the Doctor passes them by like a journalist for National Geographic, watching the lion cubs die of thirst in the drought and not giving them a drop.

She was wrong after all. The Doctor is not kind. Instead of dematerializing the TARDIS into the time vortex, he pulls it just far away enough from Starship UK to see it briefly burn before the oxygen is spent and it drifts, broken and lifeless.

Beyond it, she can see the starwhale floating free.

"You'll be taking me home now, I take it," Amy says, trying to force her voice not to break and mostly failing.

"Is that where you want to go?" the Doctor asks coldly.

"Can you take me back to an hour ago on the Starship UK?" Amy asks suddenly. "Can we change it?"

"No," the Doctor answers. "We can't cross our own timelines."

Of course, that makes sense. If he could just go back and save everyone, he wouldn't be the last Time Lord, would he?

"Besides," the Doctor says, "even if you could, would you want to make that choice again? Could you make it better this time?"

Amy can't speak for the next few moments, through her grief and her tears. "But I killed them, all those people," she says. "That can't have been the right thing. I never wanted..."

She turns to him. "This is worse than being like a journalist, not saving anyone. I didn't just watch, I _caused_ it. I changed it. That wasn't supposed to happen, but it did because of me. And I can't take this. I didn't know if I could watch, but I certainly can't live with the murder of the population of an entire country in my memory. So please, Doctor, please..." She falls to her knees in front of him. "_Please._"

"What is it you're asking of me, Amy Pond?"

Amy takes a deep breath. "I want to forget it."

The Doctor pauses. "I once had a friend I had to make forget everything she'd seen with me. And she didn't want to forget it. She begged me not to take the memories away. But I did it, and she forgot me, forgot the wonders of the universe, forgot the person she'd been able to grow into. She wanted nothing more than to remember, but I had to make her forget. It isn't fair at all, is it?" He shakes his head. "No, Amy Pond, you are going to remember this until the day you die."

Amy remembers the way the Doctor looked at Liz 10 when she stayed behind, and what he'd said before that. "It isn't a mercy you'd grant yourself either, then."

"As you may have figured out, I am not kind," the Doctor says.

They sit down on the edge of the TARDIS's floor, their legs dangling out the open doors. Stretched out before them lies the wreckage of a dead city, and one of the rarest creatures in the universe, finally freed from its torment.

"It's beautiful," Amy says through her tears, "the starwhale." And it is. As she watches it, she starts to understand that this is the sort of thing you can't forget, that even with the awful price it comes with, you couldn't _bear_ to forget.

"Now that you know that it would kill all those people, do you regret freeing it?" the Doctor asks.

Amy is silent for several minutes. The Doctor does not press her. Perhaps he thinks she doesn't have an answer. Perhaps he thinks there is no answer.

"Those people didn't deserve to die," Amy says at length. "But the starwhale...I couldn't let it be killed or tortured like that."

"Because it was the last of its kind, but there are plenty of humans?" the Doctor asks bitterly.

"Because I loved it," Amy says. "Because...because it was better than us humans. Even if we've twisted it and made it sad, made it lose hope, made it unkind. It had suffered so much already, and it was so beautiful."

Amy leans her head on his shoulder, her tears dampening his shirt. "You can take me home for what I've done if you feel you need to," she says, "but I'll follow you if you let me."

"I wonder what sort of person I'll become with you following me," the Doctor muses. "I think you might be a dangerous influence."

"Because I couldn't let you kill a starwhale?"

"Yes."


End file.
